Do you have Hearing Loss?

[Athena]

This is an interesting question as there appears to be some evidence of a link between kidney dysfunction and hearing loss (https://www.kidney.org/news/newsroom/nr/HearingLoss) but I am not entirely convinced of this due to the small sample size in this study (513 of people with CKD in a study of 2,900 of individuals over the age of 50). I am keen to hear from others.

Some of the signs of HL is difficulty catching everything said in conversations, difficulty hearing the TV & conversation with background noise.

[Deanne]

I haven't been tested, but I think the time is coming when I should talking to an audiologist.

[Athena]

I haven't been tested, but I think the time is coming when I should talking to an audiologist.

Sorry to hear that you feel a need to get tested. Are there any symptoms you have that bother you?

[iolaire]

What I wonder about is how could someone determine if their hearing loss is due to age or another factor?  For example my wife at 47 recently had to start using reading glasses.  I assume that its age related but how would you ever know for sure.

Yet I'm sure you could find a statically correlation between dialysis patients and non patients, how could any one person know what was causing hearing loss?

[Athena]

What I wonder about is how could someone determine if their hearing loss is due to age or another factor?  For example my wife at 47 recently had to start using reading glasses.  I assume that its age related but how would you ever know for sure.

Yet I'm sure you could find a statically correlation between dialysis patients and non patients, how could any one person know what was causing hearing loss?

Iolaire, they really have no idea what causes sensorineural hearing loss. They can gauge certain clues with each specific hearing loss pattern (eg high frequency hearing loss patterns) but their knowledge & diagnostic techniques are so crude and lacking that they make nephrology look like they're light years ahead in the universe!

Hearing aids, in spite of what manufacturers like to claim, are extremely inadequate. I have one of the best aids & I still don't catch everything in conversations.

It is quite a depressing field. Some type of conductive hearing loss can be fixed through surgery though.

In traditional Chinese medicine thinking, the kidneys and hearing faculty are intimately connected but evidence of this in link in modern science is limited. Hence why I thought of setting up a poll.

Bear in mind though that certain drugs used in the treatment of kidney issues such as Lasix diuretics, can worsen hearing. Other ototoxic drugs are cancer-fighting drugs & certain antibiotics. So even if a kidney patient reports HL issues, it could be drug-induced rather than a natural outcome of the disease.

[Deanne]

I haven't been tested, but I think the time is coming when I should talking to an audiologist.

Sorry to hear that you feel a need to get tested. Are there any symptoms you have that bother you?

I've had tinnitus for years. It isn't awful, just annoying at times. I know this can go hand-in-hand with hearing loss. My parents and older sister both use hearing aids now. My dad and sister have a history of being in loud environments, so I can't entirely blame genetics from them, but when three of the five in my immediate family are wearing hearing aids, it still makes me pay attention to my own hearing. I've found my mom hard to hear for years. She mumbles..... or does she? Is it just that I have trouble hearing her range? Sometimes people will say "did you hear that?" and I'll say "Hear what?" Over the weekend, the oven timer went off. It's a high-pitched beep. I've always heard it in the past, but I didn't hear it - three times.

I doubt I'll get tested any time in the near future. I have enough going on right now and if I do have some hearing loss, I don't notice any effects on day-to-day life yet. It's just in the back of my mind as "some day...."

[Sugarlump]

Having been on dialysis more or less ten years, I would say my hearing loss started to develop about halfway through. (I have often wondered about a link to kidney failure?)
I cannot hear people unless they are looking at me, I guess I partially lipread and I can't hear well over the phone or in noisy places. Accents completely floor me...
yet if I got tested, it would be admitting another bit of me has failed it's MOT so I haven't and I know I should but ....

[Athena]

Having been on dialysis more or less ten years, I would say my hearing loss started to develop about halfway through. (I have often wondered about a link to kidney failure?)
I cannot hear people unless they are looking at me, I guess I partially lipread and I can't hear well over the phone or in noisy places. Accents completely floor me...
yet if I got tested, it would be admitting another bit of me has failed it's MOT so I haven't and I know I should but ....

Sugarlump, I completely understand your reticence in getting tested & being told of some other failure in the body! 
Testing in itself is pretty useless as they only measure what degree and pattern of hearing loss someone has. Where it becomes useful is if you want to acquire hearing aids. They can fit you with them and tweak them so that they come to your aid as much as is technologically possible.
That said, I generally have not found hearing aids to be some great saviour. I still don't always catch some words someone has said even with them on! They offer some marginal improvement in hearing softer environmental sounds. Everyone's hearing is different though.

[Athena]

Well, as it turns out - hearing loss and CKD is only a weak connection at best. I spoke to a researcher who actually studied this link and was told that there is no strong compelling evidence of the link between hearing issues and CKD. He told me that lots of things in medicine have no apparent cause or explanation.

I have actually spoken to another researcher in audiology & he told me that the notion of pure "bad luck" is a concept that has a lot of evidence in medicine. Haha! 

So back to where I started - I have no idea why I developed this problem in my forties. The only good news is that some days I hear better than other days. They have no explanation for this, except to  advise me that even this has not been researched very well but exists only as anecdotal evidence.

I think I might revert to nice old fashioned superstition and old wives tales for why things are the way they are. I find this all rather funny right now.

[Alex C.]

I have mild hearing loss, but in my case, it was due to about 1.5 million miles driving tractor-trailers. I have reduced low-frequency hearing in the right, and reduced high-frequency in the left, which is completely consistent with many hours sitting with a droning diesel on one side, and wind noise on the other. I also have arthritis in my right shoulder, probably due to those awful short-throw Fuller 7-speeds I drove for the first 2 years...

[Athena]

Alex, noise-induced hearing loss, which usually affects the high frequency range at 4,000 Hertz or above is the usual reason for HL in those younger than 60. At least you are not in any doubt as to why you have your issues with hearing. I, on the other hand, can't recall being exposed to loud music or noise for any significant period of time like you have so my case is more of a big mystery.

Have you been given hearing aids for your problem. If so, have they helped you at all?

[Sugarlump]

I think my hearing is getting worse. I keep mishearing words now. Particularly with words begining with s or f and m or n, sometimes even confuse c and d too.
Very annoying... guess I will have to venture in to Specsavers and have my hearing assessed.
I have got to the stage where I don't bother asking people to repeat things, I just shrug and "pretend" I understood...

[Darthvadar]

Mum's hearing became very poor soon after going on dialysis... Only got worse!...

Hope things improve for you all...

Darth...

[cassandra]

I just read that high BP can lead to hearing loss. Controling BP would be the only way to reduce further damage.

[hatedialysis2]

Below is a TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) explanation of the connection between kidneys, aging and hearing disorders.  Its interesting to note that the ears are similar in shape to the kidneys.

http://www.itmonline.org/arts/tinmen.htm


"Chinese medical ideas about the cause and treatment of tinnitus and other hearing disorders were developed many centuries ago. In the Neijing Suwen (1), written around 100 B.C., several potential causes were mentioned. For example, it is stated: "Kidney qi communicates with the ears; when the kidneys are functioning well, the five types of sound can be heard." The term kidney (shen), as used by ancient Chinese doctors, refers to a functional complex that is today difficult to link to specific organs, but can be suggested to involve not only the kidneys, but also the endocrine system. According to the traditional ideas, kidney qi weakens with aging (especially after age 50) and difficulty with hearing, as well as failings of the other senses, particularly vision, arises as a result. We know from modern investigations that tinnitus may arise in conjunction with the common old age disorders of anemia, heart and blood vessel disorders (e.g., hypertension, hyperlipidemia, arteriosclerosis), and the accumulated effect of numerous ear infections or exposures to very loud noise over many years."

[Charlie B53]

I have been tested a couple of times.  I do have tinnitus, constantly, far worse on the right.  I have specific tone loss from occupational exposure.

I have problems distinguishing words.  Often cannot understand what someone is speaking unless I can SEE their lips move.  I cannot READ lips, but somehow seeing helps me to understand what they are saying.   If they turn their head away while talking I cannot understand anything.  It is just scrambled sounds, meaningless.  I am always asking for them to repeat themselves.  Wife just gets mad and shruggs.  Claiming it doesn't matter.   I KNOW better.  That is 'women speak' for "I'm pretty mad at YOU!"   This is just ONE of the things that men do know about women.  Some of their 'women speak'  phrases.  lol

And you Ladies KNOW I am right!

[cassandra]

This lady (as in me) thinks that your wife would tell you straight if she were actually mad at you. Maybe you'd been grocery shopping?

   

Love, Cas

[Charlie B53]

This lady (as in me) thinks that your wife would tell you straight if she were actually mad at you. Maybe you'd been grocery shopping?

   

Love, Cas

As a matter of fact,   I   DID  bring home a LARGE package of pork steaks.  They broiled wonderfully.  She has yet to take one bite.

Three left-overs went into the fridge.  I've been working on them.  One left.

Oh qwap, that is what I forgot to do today, go to the store again.  I am almost out of graham crackers.   I just HAVE to have my graham crackers (3) every morning with my coffee.  I'll be alright, I have 3 left for tomorrow morning, but then I have GOT TO go!

[Fabkiwi06]

Well, for what it's worth... I have had hearing loss since childhood and they think my kidney disease started around the same time. I had a lot of ear infections and now they think that those were staph related - and also contributed to my renal issues.

It would not surprise me if the two were related. It wouldn't surprise me if it was just a coincidence.

[Athena]

Well, for what it's worth... I have had hearing loss since childhood and they think my kidney disease started around the same time. I had a lot of ear infections and now they think that those were staph related - and also contributed to my renal issues.

It would not surprise me if the two were related. It wouldn't surprise me if it was just a coincidence.

Thanks for posting. My ENT specialist did make an intriguing comment about the kidneys and our cochlea being of some similar structure. I'm not a scientist so haven't really looked into it but I daresay that it is probably quite accurate. That is why with certain toxic antibiotics for example, they can leave us with both kidney damage and hearing loss! Sometimes I wonder what antibiotics they gave me in childhood when I had severe respiratory childhood illnesses.